Recalibrating justice: Their Take

Despite persistent polarization in Washington, a bipartisan consensus is emerging around the proposition that too many Americans are incarcerated for too long.

Democrats tend to emphasize the injustice of excessive sentences that disproportionately affect racial minorities. Republicans are more likely to stress the cost of over-incarceration. But the common ground is real and significant.

Last week, by a vote of 13 to 5, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Smarter Sentencing Act … The bill would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for many nonviolent drug offenses and make retroactive a 2010 law reducing sentences for the possession of crack cocaine, a change that could benefit as many as 8,800 prisoners. The huge disparity between sentences for crack and powder cocaine had the effect of punishing black defendants more harshly than white ones.…

[U.S. Attorney General Eric] Holder has made it clear that he recognizes that too many defendants are being sentenced to too much time in prison. He has undertaken a "Smart on Crime" initiative that, among other things, directs U.S. attorneys to refrain from charging low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that would lead to draconian mandatory minimum sentences. …

The United States is the world leader in incarceration. That is a dubious form of American exceptionalism that both parties in Washington — and in the 50 states — are finally beginning to rectify.